Category Archives: Puppy Doggies

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Don’t be fooled by their tiny brown eyes or sad demeanor. These three dogs are loved and spoilt. Mini and Cooper are our white, fluffy dogs. Max is visiting with his Mum – who is also my Mum (I guess that kind of makes Max my brother).

They sit in continuous hope for treats from the kitchen.

The gate enables me to cook uninterrupted from the Toddler and the Fur Kids.

For months I have been battling with the introduced European Black Birds in our area. They were eating my cherry tomatoes before I could pick them.

After losing every battle with them (clearly they are of higher intelligence), I decided on a compromise, a truse. Left over fruit, bread and veggies from our little one’s meal, is now thrown onto the ground for the black birds to eat.

Amazingly my arrangement with the birds is working however I can’t help feel I am enabling and encouraging their behaviour – it won’t be long till their friends and offspring hear about it too.

Now that the black birds are leaving our veggie patches alone, small white fluffy dogs have been causing me grief. I guess I can’t blame our dogs Mini and Cooper, after all, up until recently they have been City dogs with no experience of large gardens.

This was the solution I decided upon to keep small dogs out of the vegetable patches (made from lattice off cuts we had in the garage).

Just about every week day morning, I take Mini and Cooper for a run before I start work. While running, it never ceases to amaze me what I discover people in my local neighbourhood have thrown away.

It is not unusual for me to leave for my run with just two white fluffy dogs, yet return with two dogs and a good little ‘find’ that I have picked up along the way.

Just have a look at what I have found in the last two weeks.

Let me assure you that I am not a hoarder. Everything I ‘pick up’ I have a need for (saves me money and the items were saved from landfill). Read my recent post about our huge free ‘garage sale’ give away which will confirm that I often have massive clean ups.

Most of the items I pick up are garden pots that I re-pot, replant and add to our backyard courtyard.

Here are some of the garden pots (which have been replanted) that I have previously saved from landfill.

My most recent find while on my morning runs, was a huge red tub. I am sure everyone in the neighbourhood thought I was strange running along with two dogs and this huge red tub that I had picked up. Thought this would make an excellent bath tube for Mini & Cooper as their old one died the other day.

Here is Mini checking to make sure she would fit inside (with a little help from Mummy).

Then today, I saw this on the side of the road:

No I didn’t pick up the ink jet printer and the cute little white side table but hoping someone else does.

Here is a tip *** If you do have stuff that you no longer need, instead of throwing it away, place a free ad in Free Cycle for your local area. You will be surprised how someone will want it and will come by and pick it up from you…………..now isn’t that better than throwing stuff away?

Yesterday being Friday, I decided that I would hold my FREE garage sale on Saturday. I wrote my advertisement and listed it within my Sydney City Freecycle group (there are Freecycle groups all over Australia and the world).

My ad:

Hi All,

We thought we would have a garage sale but instead of charging for the items we
would offer it all for FREE to our Freecycle group.

Here are the details:

This Saturday the 14th of August from 11am to 3pm (don’t come earlier or later
as times are exact). We will not be holding or saving any items for anyone i.e.
first in first served until all items are gone.

Here are the type of stuff we are giving away:

* Ladies & Mens clothes & shoes
* Some children’s toys
* Books – cooking, photography, business & novels
* Magazines – computer, photography & some others
* Art supplies
* Bags
* Some kitchen stuff
* DVD’s & CD’s
* Heaps of bits and pieces.
* We are adding more stuff to the pile all the time – we are all in the mood to
have a big clean out!

All items are of in good condition and some are brand new. We wanted to give it
all away rather than selling it – creates positive energy. 🙂

Sarhn

Come Saturday at 11am people came from what appeared to be ‘nowhere’. We met many families, single parents, students and even a photography teacher looking for supplies and items for her students (what a A+ teacher!).

I had a blast watching people’s face light up when they found something that they really needed or wanted. What was really lovely, was that everyone wanted to share their ‘find’ story with us. A single mother shared how excited she was to find white shirts for her son’s school uniform. There was a geography student who went out of his way to tell me how excited he was to find a collection of Australian maps.

The best of all was the little boy who wondered further than our hallways, into our lounge room and shouted “Dad, dad dad they are giving away their big TV!”. His little excited face soften when my husband had to be the bearer of bad news. Later, I found a Yo Yo in one of the boxes and gave it to him and his little excited face returned, grinning wider than ever before.

Within two hours 98% of everything had gone. Noticing two pillows remained, I wondered what I was going to do with them as it was obvious no one would take them. Moving my attention quickly to other matters, I forgot those two pillows until I turned around and saw this…………

Looks like Mini & Cooper have claimed the pillows for themselves. How could I say ‘no’ to these faces?

Yes they are spoilt but they deserve having the pillows, as they worked hard helping me with the Freecycle give away.

What a fantastic day! Giving stuff away is far more rewarding then trying to sell it.

If you don’t believe me, let me leave you with a text message I received from a lady who’s husband and three children came to our free garage sale:

“Dear Sarhn,

Thank you for your generous contribution to the Freecycle concept. My husband and three children brought home two boxes of your goodies and they are all delighted with themselves.

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About Sarhn

Professional photographer and entrepreneur now living in a semi rural town South of Sydney, Australia. Wife. Mother. Since 2006 I have decided that I no longer want to use the excuse of 'being too busy' to care for the environment, animal welfare and my community.

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